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- Newsgroups: alt.feminism
- Path: sparky!uunet!news.gtech.com!noc.near.net!lynx!mkagalen
- From: mkagalen@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (michael kagalenko)
- Subject: Re: heterosexuality and feminism
- Message-ID: <1992Nov16.050524.681@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu>
- Organization: Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 02115, USA
- References: <1992Nov15.202629.13847@midway.uchicago.edu>
- Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 05:05:24 GMT
- Lines: 107
-
- In article <1992Nov15.202629.13847@midway.uchicago.edu> mec6@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
- >
- >Recently (this summer) Naomi Wolf wrote an article in Ms. entitled
- >"Radical Heterosexuality... or How To Love a Man and Save Your
- >Feminist Soul."
- >
- >It didn't strike me as particularly... oh... earth shaking or
- >anything, but when I got the most recent issue, it was filled with
- >letters about the article.
- >
- >So, for those of you who don't get Ms., let me take some excerpts.
- >
- >From the article:
- >
- >
- >"All over the country, millions of feminists have a secret indulgence.
- >By day they fight gender injustice; by night, they sleep with men. Is
- >this a dual life? A core contradiction? Is sleeping with a man
- >'sleeping with the enemy'? And is razor burn from kissing inherently
- >oppressive?
- >
- >"It's time to say you *can* hate sexism and love men. ....
- >
- >"- Rules of The Relationship ....
- >
- >"The radical heterosexual man must yield the automatic benefits
- >conferred by gender....
- >
- >"Radical heterosexual women too must give up gender benefits...
- >I have watched myself stand complacently by while my partner
- >wrestles with a stuck window, an intractable computer printer,
- >maps or locks. Sisters, I am not proud of this, and I'm
- >working on it....
- >
- >"Radical heterosexuals must try to stay conscious -- at all times, I'm
- >afriad -- of their gender imporinting, and how it plays out in their
- >erotic melodramas... the antifemnist erotic template is *in* us. We
- >would not be citizens of this culture is swooning damsels and
- >abandoned vixens had to been beamed at us from our first solid food to
- >our first vote. We can't fight it until we admit to it....
- >
- >"- In The Bedroom
- >
- >"Those are the conditions for the radical heterosexual couple. What
- >might this new creation look like in bed? It will look like something
- >we have no words or images for -- the eroticization of consent, the
- >equal primacy of female and male desire. ....
- >
- >"- The Men We Love
- >
- >"Men We Love understand that, no matter how similar our backgrounds, we
- >are engaged in a cross-cultural relationship. ....
- >
- >"Men We Love must make a leap of imagination to believe in the female
- >experience. They do not call women nags or paranoid when we embark on
- >the arduous, often boring, nonnegotiable daily chore of drawing
- >attention to sexism....
- >
- >"- A Place for Them
- >
- >"When I was 16, my boyfriend came with me to hear Andrea Dworkin speak.
- >While hearing great feminist oratory in a sea of furious women changed
- >my life, it nearly ended my boyfriend's: he barely escaped being drawn
- >and quartered. ....
- >
- >"It's time to direct our anger more autely at the Men We Hate -- like
- >George Bush -- and give the Men We Love something useful to do. ....
- >
- >"Finally, the place to make room for radical feminist heterosexuality
- >is within our heads. .... Is it the chromosomes of your lovers that
- >establish you as a feminist? Or is it the life you make out of the
- >love you make."
- >
- >========
- >
- >Letters to the Editor:
- >
- >"I hope it is not news when a feminist finds a great man to share her
- >life with. If it is, I am extremely lucky and smart to be with an
- >equalitst husband."
- >
- >"Right on, Sister! ... I have been living with an uneasy fear of not
- >being a 'Good Feminist'. How can I be a Good Feminist if I cook my
- >partner's dinner or ask him to kill the ant on the kitchen counter?"
- >
- >"From my own personal experience, I have learned that men will not be
- >sympathetic towards women's issues *until* they are enlightened by the
- >women they care about. I believe that nearly ideal heterosexual
- >relationships can be created, but not simply found."
- >
- >"Namoi Wolf attempts to sabotage the women's movement by advocating a
- >return to heterosexuality... This reactionary view comes at a time
- >when women are just beginning to uderstand the connection between
- >heterosexuality and our enslavement."
- >
- >"We were appalled at Naomi Wolf's article. It is clear that her
- >'radical' is at best conservative and at worst destructive. ... Her
- >analysis provides such a superficial solution to female/male
- >relationships: all men have to do is cuddle babies and all women have
- >to do is get out of bed and fix the TV aerial. It is as depressing as
- >it is astonishing that someone apparaently familiar with the reality
- >of misogyny would prescribe such simplistic solutions."
- >
- >
- >rini
-
- Feminists discovered, that 2+2=4 ! Congratulations !!
-